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The State Open tournament -- starting on Monday at the Rolling Hills Country Club -- is the one jewel that Szewczul, 60, has yet to fit into his already crowded crown. State Amateur Champion? Got it. State Mid-Amateur Champion? Got that, too. Senior Match Play Champion? Oh yeah. Senior Amateur Champion? Yes, again. State Senior Player of the Year? Won it five straight times. State Player of the Year? Won that as well in 2012.

But that State Open? Szewczul is still trying to grab that gold ring.

"Being such a competitive person and hitting every dot on the map, this is the one dot I haven't been fortunate enough to get," Szewczul said recently at a Connecticut State Golf Association media day to promote the 80th State Open. "I've been close three times. At (Country Club of) Fairfield (in 2010), I was even with three holes to go and lost by two. It's always been a couple of shots."

Three times, Szewczul has finished second in the Open, coming oh, so close, only to have it slip though his fingers. And as frustrating as letting it get away has to be, it only serves to drive him harder.

"To win it would really mean a lot," said Szewczul, who has also won the State Public Links championship. "It would mean that my game has come full circle. I've done it with the amateurs and I've done it with the professionals. Being the top tournament in the state, you kind of want to get that crown jewel."

Growing up, golf wasn't Szewczul's No. 1 passion, it was baseball. When he was in high school, the Red Sox scouted him, but knee surgery eventually put that career path to rest. After that, golf became the focal point, so much so that Szewczul's parents bought him a $25 season pass to the Stanley Golf Club in New Britain where he played ¦ and played ¦ and played.

"I'd walk a couple of miles to the golf course with the clubs on my back," he said. "Just about every day. I used to walk there and play and I started working there for a few summers and just kind of self-taught. Just kind of worked at it, worked at it, and just took a liking to the game, loved the competition. I used to take my sandwich (peanut butter) and spend 25 cents on a root beer and I played a lot of golf. It was a fun, fun summer.

"I could play as much as I wanted before 3 o'clock, so I could play 36 holes. And then there was a group of guys, older guys, that would play at 3 and I'd caddy nine holes for them. So I kind of lived at the golf course."

When Szewczul was 16, he qualified for his first state amateur and "really got bitten by the (golf) bug," he said. When he was 21 in 1975, he lost in the finals to the Rev. Bill Lee and after that "felt like he belonged" and could be competitive.

But as hard as the golf bug bit, Szewczul drew the line at competing at the professional level.

"I was offered some contracts with a few equipment companies out of college," he said. "And you always think about doing it, but I just felt like if I got married and had a family, I didn't want my family to have strange (golf) courses and hotels to be the backyard for my children. I just didn't want that. I grew up in a great family. We didn't have a lot growing up, but my parents were always there for my baseball games and I always said if I ever have a family, that's how I want it to be. As an amateur, I could travel when I wanted and not have to do it for a living.

"And I think when you play professionally, you lose a little perspective, it becomes a job in a sense and not a game. No one is forcing me to play the game, I'm playing it out of love."

With all the success Szewczul has enjoyed over his five-decade career, there isn't one event or championship that he relishes over the other. Just the fact that he's still playing is enough.

"Just the fact that I'm still competitive," he said. "And I say `at my stage,' but I feel that I'm nowhere near done. To be competitive all these years and to be up with all the best players, I'm really proud of that. It wasn't just a three- or four-year stint and then I faded into the stretch, I still think that every tournament that I tee it up in that I have a chance to win."

And he'll tee it up on Monday, looking for that elusive State Open jewel.